118THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 159
AN ACT
To implement merit-based reforms to the civil service hiring
system that replace degree-based hiring with skills- and
competency-based hiring, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 2
•HR 159 EH
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 1
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Chance to Compete 2
Act of 2023’’. 3
SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS. 4
(a) T
ERMSDEFINED INSECTION3304 OFTITLE5, 5
U
NITEDSTATESCODE.—In this Act, the terms ‘‘agency’’, 6
‘‘Director’’, ‘‘examining agency’’, ‘‘Office’’, ‘‘subject mat-7
ter expert’’, and ‘‘technical assessment’’ have the mean-8
ings given those terms in subsection (c)(1) of section 3304 9
of title 5, United States Code, as added by section 3(a). 10
(b) O
THERTERMS.—In this Act, the term ‘‘competi-11
tive service’’ has the meaning given the term in section 12
2102 of title 5, United States Code. 13
SEC. 3. DEFINING THE TERM ‘‘EXAMINATION’’ FOR PUR-14
POSES OF HIRING IN THE COMPETITIVE 15
SERVICE. 16
(a) E
XAMINATIONS; TECHNICALASSESSMENTS.— 17
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Section 3304 of title 5, 18
United States Code, is amended— 19
(A) by redesignating subsections (c) 20
through (f) as subsections (d) through (g), re-21
spectively; and 22
(B) by inserting after subsection (b) the 23
following: 24
‘‘(c) E
XAMINATIONS.— 25
‘‘(1) D
EFINITIONS.— 26 3
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‘‘(A) EXAMINATION.— 1
‘‘(i) In this chapter, the term ‘exam-2
ination’— 3
‘‘(I) means an opportunity to di-4
rectly demonstrate knowledge, skills, 5
abilities, and competencies, through a 6
passing score assessment; 7
‘‘(II) includes a re´sume´review 8
that is— 9
‘‘(aa) conducted by a subject 10
matter expert; and 11
‘‘(bb) based upon indicators 12
that— 13
‘‘(AA) are derived from 14
a job analysis; and 15
‘‘(BB) bear a rational 16
relationship to performance 17
in the position for which the 18
examining agency is hiring; 19
and 20
‘‘(III) on and after the date that 21
is 2 years after the date of enactment 22
of the Chance to Compete Act of 2023 23
does not include a self-assessment 24
from an automated examination, a 25 4
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re´sume´review (except as provided in 1
subclause (II)), or any other method 2
of determining the experience or level 3
of educational attainment of an indi-4
vidual, alone. 5
‘‘(ii)(I) An agency’s Chief Human 6
Capital Officer may waive clause (i)(III) 7
when needed to enable the filling of a posi-8
tion or class of positions. 9
‘‘(II) Not later than 180 days after 10
the date of enactment of the Chance to 11
Compete Act of 2023, the Director shall 12
provide agencies guidance and instruction 13
on the data, evidence, and circumstances 14
that Chief Human Capital Officers of 15
agencies should consider in determining 16
whether to grant a waiver under subclause 17
(I). 18
‘‘(III)(aa) An agency shall post any 19
waiver granted under subclause (I) on a 20
public website within 30 days of the grant-21
ing of the waiver. 22
‘‘(bb) A waiver shall not be considered 23
in effect until it is posted on the public 24
website pursuant to item (aa). 25 5
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‘‘(IV)(aa) Each agency shall submit to 1
the Director on a semiannual basis a re-2
port summarizing the number of waivers 3
granted by the Chief Human Capital Offi-4
cer of the agency under subclause (I) dur-5
ing the preceding 6-month period and the 6
reasons therefor. 7
‘‘(bb) The Director shall submit annu-8
ally to the Committee on Homeland Secu-9
rity and Governmental Affairs of the Sen-10
ate and the Committee on Oversight and 11
Accountability of the House of Representa-12
tives a report summarizing the number of 13
waivers granted by the Chief Human Cap-14
ital Officers of all agencies under subclause 15
(I) during the preceding year and the rea-16
sons therefor provided by the agencies. 17
‘‘(V) Not more than 10 percent of an 18
agency’s positions filled through competi-19
tive hiring procedures during a fiscal year 20
may be filled under the authority of a 21
waiver granted under clause (I), and an 22
agency shall obtain the Director’s approval 23
to fill more than 5 percent of such posi-24
tions under such authority. 25 6
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‘‘(B) OTHER DEFINITIONS.—In this sub-1
section— 2
‘‘(i) the term ‘agency’ means an agen-3
cy described in section 901(b) of title 31; 4
‘‘(ii) the term ‘Director’ means the 5
Director of the Office; 6
‘‘(iii) the term ‘examining agency’ 7
means— 8
‘‘(I) the Office; or 9
‘‘(II) an agency to which the Di-10
rector has delegated examining au-11
thority under section 1104(a)(2) of 12
this title; 13
‘‘(iv) the term ‘passing score assess-14
ment’ means an assessment that an indi-15
vidual can pass or fail; 16
‘‘(v) the term ‘subject matter expert’ 17
means an employee or selecting official— 18
‘‘(I) who possesses understanding 19
of the duties of, and knowledge, skills, 20
and abilities required for, the position 21
for which the employee or selecting of-22
ficial is developing or administering 23
an assessment; and 24 7
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‘‘(II) whom the agency that em-1
ploys the employee or selecting official 2
designates to assist in the develop-3
ment and administration of technical 4
assessments under paragraph (2); and 5
‘‘(vi) the term ‘technical assessment’ 6
means an assessment developed under 7
paragraph (2)(A)(i) that— 8
‘‘(I) allows for the demonstration 9
of job-related technical skills, abilities, 10
and knowledge; 11
‘‘(II)(aa) is based upon a job 12
analysis; and 13
‘‘(bb) is relevant to the posi-14
tion for which the assessment is 15
developed; and 16
‘‘(III) may include— 17
‘‘(aa) a structured interview; 18
‘‘(bb) a work-related exer-19
cise; 20
‘‘(cc) a custom or generic 21
procedure used to measure an in-22
dividual’s employment or career- 23
related qualifications and inter-24
ests; or 25 8
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‘‘(dd) another assessment 1
that meets the criteria under 2
subclauses (I) and (II). 3
‘‘(2) T
ECHNICAL ASSESSMENTS .— 4
‘‘(A) I
N GENERAL.—For the purpose of 5
conducting an examination for a position in the 6
competitive service, an individual or individuals 7
whom an agency determines to have an exper-8
tise in the subject and job field of the position, 9
as affirmed and audited by the Chief Human 10
Capital Officer or Human Resources Director 11
(as applicable) of that agency, may— 12
‘‘(i) develop, in partnership with 13
human resources employees of the exam-14
ining agency, a position-specific assessment 15
that is relevant to the position; and 16
‘‘(ii) administer the assessment devel-17
oped under clause (i) to— 18
‘‘(I) determine whether an appli-19
cant for the position has a passing 20
score to be qualified for the position; 21
or 22
‘‘(II) rank applicants for the po-23
sition for category rating purposes 24
under section 3319. 25 9
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‘‘(B) SHARING AND CUSTOMIZATION OF 1
ASSESSMENTS.— 2
‘‘(i) S
HARING.—An examining agency 3
may share a technical assessment with an-4
other examining agency if each agency 5
maintains appropriate control over exam-6
ination material. 7
‘‘(ii) C
USTOMIZATION.—An examining 8
agency with which a technical assessment 9
is shared under clause (i) may customize 10
the assessment as appropriate, provided 11
that the resulting assessment satisfies the 12
requirements under part 300 of title 5, 13
Code of Federal Regulations (or any suc-14
cessor regulation). 15
‘‘(iii) P
LATFORM FOR SHARING AND 16
CUSTOMIZATION.— 17
‘‘(I) I
N GENERAL.—The Director 18
shall establish and operate an online 19
platform on which examining agencies 20
can share and customize technical as-21
sessments under this subparagraph. 22
‘‘(II) O
NLINE PLATFORM .—The 23
Director shall ensure that the online 24
platform described in subclause (I) in-25 10
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cludes the ability of its users to rate 1
the utility of the content and technical 2
assessments shared in the online plat-3
form to allow for a ranking of such 4
contents. 5
‘‘(3) R
EGULATIONS.—Not later than one year 6
after the date of enactment of the Chance to Com-7
pete Act of 2023, the Office of Personnel Manage-8
ment shall prescribe regulations necessary for the 9
administration of this subsection with respect to em-10
ployees in each agency.’’. 11
(2) A
LTERNATIVE RANKING AND SELECTION 12
PROCEDURES.—Section 3319(a) of title 5, United 13
States Code, is amended by adding at the end the 14
following: ‘‘To be placed in a quality category under 15
the preceding sentence, an applicant shall be re-16
quired to have passed an examination in accordance 17
with section 3304(b).’’. 18
(3) T
ECHNICAL AND CONFORMING AMEND -19
MENT.—Section 3330a(a)(1)(B) of title 5, United 20
States Code, is amended by striking ‘‘section 21
3304(f)(1)’’ and inserting ‘‘section 3304(g)(1)’’. 22
(b) I
MPLEMENTATION OF PASSINGSCOREASSESS-23
MENTREQUIREMENT.— 24 11
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(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 2 years after 1
the date of enactment of this Act, the Director and 2
the head of any other examining agency shall elimi-3
nate the use of any examination for the competitive 4
service that does not satisfy the definition of the 5
term ‘‘examination’’ in subsection (c)(1)(A) of sec-6
tion 3304 of title 5, United States Code (as amend-7
ed by subsection (a)(1)(B)). 8
(2) R
EPORT REQUIRED .—One year following 9
the date of enactment of this Act, the Director shall 10
submit to the Committee on Oversight and Account-11
ability of the House of Representatives and the 12
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 13
Affairs of the Senate a report examining agencies’ 14
progress in implementing the requirement specified 15
in paragraph (1), identifying any significant difficul-16
ties encountered in such implementation. 17
(c) OPM R
EPORTING.— 18
(1) P
UBLIC ONLINE TOOL.— 19
(A) I
N GENERAL.—The Director of the Of-20
fice of Personnel Management shall maintain 21
and periodically update a publicly available on-22
line tool that, with respect to each position in 23
the competitive service for which an examining 24 12
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agency examined applicants during the applica-1
ble period, includes— 2
(i) the type of assessment used, such 3
as— 4
(I) a behavioral off-the-shelf as-5
sessment; 6
(II) a re´sume´review conducted 7
by a subject matter expert; 8
(III) an interview conducted by a 9
subject matter expert; 10
(IV) a technical off-the-shelf as-11
sessment; or 12
(V) a cognitive ability test; 13
(ii) whether or not the agency selected 14
a candidate for the position; and 15
(iii) the hiring authority used to fill 16
the position. 17
(B) T
IMING.— 18
(i) I
NITIAL DATA.—Not later than 19
180 days after the date of enactment of 20
this Act, the Director shall update the on-21
line tool described in subparagraph (A) 22
with data for positions in the competitive 23
service for which an examining agency ex-24
amined applicants during the period begin-25 13
•HR 159 EH
ning on the date of enactment of this Act 1
and ending on the date of submission of 2
the report. 3
(ii) S
UBSEQUENT UPDATES .—Not 4
later than October 1 of each fiscal year be-5
ginning after the date on which the online 6
tool is initially updated under clause (i), 7
the Director shall update the online tool 8
described in subparagraph (A) with data 9
for positions in the competitive service for 10
which an examining agency examined ap-11
plicants during the preceding fiscal year. 12
(2) A
NNUAL PROGRESS REPORT .— 13
(A) I
N GENERAL.—Each year, the Direc-14
tor, in accordance with subparagraphs (B) and 15
(C), shall make publicly available and submit to 16
Congress an overall progress report that in-17
cludes summary data from examinations that 18
are closed, audited, and anonymous on the use 19
of examinations (as defined in subsection 20
(c)(1)(A) of section 3304 of title 5, United 21
States Code, as added by subsection (a) of this 22
section) for the competitive service, including 23
technical assessments. 24 14
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(B) CATEGORIES; BASELINE DATA.—In 1
carrying out subparagraph (A), the Director 2
shall— 3
(i) break the data down by applicant 4
demographic indicator, including veteran 5
status, race, gender, disability, and any 6
other measure the Director determines ap-7
propriate; and 8
(ii) use the data available as of Octo-9
ber 1, 2020, as a baseline. 10
(C) L
IMITATIONS.—In carrying out sub-11
paragraph (A), the Director may only make 12
publicly available and submit to Congress data 13
relating to examinations for which— 14
(i) the related announcement is 15
closed; 16
(ii) certificates have been audited; and 17
(iii) all hiring processes are com-18
pleted. 19
(d) GAO R
EPORT.—Not later than 5 years after the 20
date of enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General 21
of the United States shall submit to Congress a report 22
that— 23
(1) assesses the implementation of this section 24
and the amendments made by this section; 25 15
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(2) assesses the impact and modifications to the 1
hiring process for the competitive service made by 2
this section and the amendments made by this sec-3
tion; and 4
(3) makes recommendations for the improve-5
ment of the hiring process for the competitive serv-6
ice. 7
SEC. 4. AMENDMENTS TO COMPETITIVE SERVICE ACT OF 8
2015. 9
(a) P
LATFORMS FOR SHARINGCERTIFICATES OF 10
E
LIGIBLES.— 11
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Section 3318(b) of title 5, 12
United States Code, is amended— 13
(A) in paragraph (1), by striking ‘‘240- 14
day’’ and inserting ‘‘1-year’’; 15
(B) by redesignating paragraph (5) as 16
paragraph (6); and 17
(C) by inserting after paragraph (4) the 18
following: 19
‘‘(5) O
NLINE TOOL FOR SHARING RE ´SUME´SOF 20
INDIVIDUALS ON CERTIFICATES OF ELIGIBLES .—Not 21
later than one year after the date of enactment of 22
the Chance to Compete Act of 2023, the Director of 23
the Office of Personnel Management shall establish 24
and operate an online tool on which an appointing 25 16
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authority can share, with other appointing authori-1
ties and the Chief Human Capital Officers Council 2
established under section 1303 of the Chief Human 3
Capital Officers Act of 2002 (5 U.S.C. 1401 note; 4
Public Law 107–296), the resumes of individuals 5
who are on a certificate of eligibles requested by the 6
appointing authority. In carrying out this para-7
graph, the Director shall consult with the Chief 8
Human Capital Officers Counsel and its membership 9
to develop a plan to establish such online tool.’’. 10
(2) P
LAN.—Not later than 270 days after the 11
date of enactment of this Act, the Director shall pro-12
vide to Congress a plan to develop the online tool re-13
quired in paragraph (5) of section 3318(b) of title 14
5, United States Code, as added by paragraph (1) 15
of this subsection. Such plan shall— 16
(A) incorporate the input and feedback col-17
lected during the required consultation under 18
such paragraph; and 19
(B) include estimated costs for building 20
and operating the online tool. 21
(b) M
AXIMIZINGSHARING OFAPPLICANTINFORMA-22
TION.—Section 2 of the Competitive Service Act of 2015 23
(Public Law 114–137; 130 Stat. 310) is amended— 24 17
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(1) by redesignating subsections (c) and (d) as 1
subsections (d) and (e), respectively; and 2
(2) by inserting after subsection (b) the fol-3
lowing: 4
‘‘(c) E
XPLORING THE BENEFITS OFMAXIMIZING 5
S
HARING OFAPPLICANTINFORMATION.— 6
‘‘(1) D
EFINITIONS.—In this subsection— 7
‘‘(A) the terms ‘agency’, ‘Director’, and 8
‘Office’ have the meanings given those terms in 9
section 3304(c)(1) of title 5, United States 10
Code; and 11
‘‘(B) the term ‘competitive service’ has the 12
meaning given the term in section 2102 of title 13
5, United States Code. 14
‘‘(2) M
AXIMIZING SHARING .—The Director 15
shall maximize the sharing of information among 16
agencies regarding qualified applicants for positions 17
in the competitive service, including by— 18
‘‘(A) providing for the delegation to other 19
agencies of the authority of the Office to host 20
multi-agency hiring actions to increase the re-21
turn on investment on high-quality pooled an-22
nouncements; and 23
‘‘(B) sharing certificates of eligibles and 24
accompanying re´sume´s for appointment.’’. 25 18
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SEC. 5. MODERNIZING AND REFORMING THE ASSESSMENT 1
AND HIRING OF FEDERAL JOB CANDIDATES. 2
(a) OPM R
EVIEW.—The Director shall conduct a re-3
view of all examinations for hiring for a position that the 4
Office or any other examining agency has determined re-5
quires a minimum educational requirement because the 6
nature of the duties of such position is of a scientific, tech-7
nical, or professional position pursuant to section 3308 of 8
title 5, United States Code, to determine whether there 9
are data, evidence, or other information that justifies the 10
need for educational requirements for such position. The 11
Director shall consult with appropriate agencies, employee 12
representatives, external experts, and other stakeholders 13
when making any such determinations. 14
(b) O
NLINETOOLREGARDINGPOSITIONDUTIES.— 15
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than two years 16
after the date of enactment of this Act, the Director 17
shall create and maintain an online tool that lists 18
each of the duties determined to require minimum 19
educational requirements and the data, evidence, or 20
other information that justifies the need for these 21
educational requirements. This online tool shall in-22
clude a mechanism to receive feedback regarding 23
data, evidence, or information that could affect the 24
determination that a duty requires a minimum edu-25
cational requirement. 26 19
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(2) HIRING PRACTICES.—Not later than one 1
year after the creation of the online tool under para-2
graph (1), the Director and the head of any other 3
examining agency shall amend the hiring practices 4
of the Office or the other examining agency, respec-5
tively, in accordance with the findings of the review 6
made by subsection (a). 7
(c) O
NLINETOOLREGARDINGRECRUITING.—Upon 8
the date of enactment of this Act, the Director shall estab-9
lish and maintain an online tool that provides Federal 10
agencies guidance on, and information about, all programs 11
and authorities that help agencies attract, recruit, hire, 12
and retain individuals. 13
SEC. 6. TALENT TEAMS. 14
(a) F
EDERALAGENCYTALENTTEAMS.— 15
(1) I
N GENERAL.—An agency may establish one 16
or more talent teams (referred to in this section as 17
‘‘agency talent teams’’), including at the component 18
level. 19
(2) D
UTIES.—An agency talent team shall pro-20
vide hiring support to the agency and other agencies, 21
including by— 22
(A) improving examinations (as defined in 23
subsection (c)(1)(A) of section 3304 of title 5, 24
United States Code, as added by section 3(a)); 25 20
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(B) facilitating writing job announcements 1
for the competitive service; 2
(C) sharing high-quality certificates of eli-3
gibles; and 4
(D) facilitating hiring for the competitive 5
service using examinations (as defined in such 6
subsection (c)(1)(A)) and subject matter ex-7
perts. 8
(b) O
FFICE OFPERSONNELMANAGEMENT.—The 9
Director may establish a Federal talent team to support 10
agency talent teams in facilitating pooled hiring actions 11
across the Federal Government, providing training, and 12
creating technology platforms to facilitate hiring for the 13
competitive service, including— 14
(1) the development of technical assessments; 15
and 16
(2) the sharing of certificates of eligibles and 17
accompanying re´sume´s under sections 3318(b) and 18
3319(c) of title 5, United States Code. 19
SEC. 7. UPDATES TO SYSTEM OF RECORDS FOR HIRING AC-20
TIONS IN THE CIVIL SERVICE. 21
(a) U
PDATE TOSELECTSYSTEM OFRECORDS.—Not 22
later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this 23
Act, and on a regular basis thereafter, the Director of the 24
Office of Management and Budget shall provide guidance 25 21
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to all Federal departments and agencies to ensure appro-1
priate use of a system of records, including any govern-2
ment-wide systems of records, to meet the requirements 3
of section 552a of title 5, United States Code (commonly 4
known as the ‘‘Privacy Act’’), in hiring actions in the civil 5
service. 6
(b) G
OVERNMENT-WIDESYSTEMS OFRECORDS AT 7
THEOFFICE.— 8
(1) I
N GENERAL.—The Director of the Office of 9
Personnel Management, in consultation with the Di-10
rector of the Office of Management and Budget, 11
shall ensure that any system of records notice up-12
dates required pursuant to the guidance provided 13
under subsection (a) account for any use of newer 14
technologies that capture records (as defined in sec-15
tion 552a(a)(4) of title 5, United States Code) in 16
video, audio, and video/audio combination formats 17
and accommodate maintenance of such video, audio, 18
and video/audio combination records. 19
(2) E
VALUATION FOR POTENTIAL UPDATES OR 20
REVISIONS.— 21
(A) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than 1 year 22
after the date of enactment of this Act, the Di-23
rector of the Office of Personnel Management 24
shall evaluate whether the government-wide 25 22
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System of Records Notices (referred to in this 1
paragraph as ‘‘SORNs’’) ‘‘OPM/GOVT-5 Re-2
cruiting, Examining, and Placement Records’’ 3
and ‘‘OPM/GOVT-6 Personnel Research and 4
Test Validation Records’’, or any successor ma-5
terials thereto, require updating or revision to 6
implement the purposes of this Act. 7
(B) I
SSUANCE OF UPDATES OR REVISIONS ; 8
NOTICE TO CONGRESS .—If the Director, after 9
the evaluation under subparagraph (A), finds 10
that any updates or revisions to the SORNs 11
identified in that subparagraph are necessary 12
and appropriate to support implementation of 13
this Act, the Director shall promptly— 14
(i) issue the updates or revisions; and 15
(ii) notify the Committee on Home-16
land Security and Governmental Affairs of 17
the Senate and the Committee on Over-18
sight and Accountability of the House of 19
Representatives. 20
Passed the House of Representatives January 24,
2023.
Attest:
Clerk. 118
TH
CONGRESS
1
ST
S
ESSION
H. R. 159
AN ACT
To implement merit-based reforms to the civil serv-
ice hiring system that replace degree-based hiring
with skills- and competency-based hiring, and for
other purposes.